Gwinnett lab implicated in Tennessee ‘pill mill’ indictment

Federal prosecutors in Tennessee say a Gwinnett County drug testing lab paid bribes and kickbacks and filed fraudulent reimbursement requests to the state and federal government.

But no one from Lawrenceville-based Confirmatrix Labs has been charged, despite a lingering federal interest in the urinalysis lab and its founder, Khalid Satary.

The indictment filed in East Tennessee stems from an alleged network of "pill mills" in and around Knoxville that federal prosecutors say dispensed opioid pain medication to people who didn't need it and stuck taxpayers with the bill for mandatory urine tests. Allegedly Confirmatrix paid kickbacks to two pill mill operators, who are the targets of the indictment, to get exclusive access to their Medicare and Medicaid patients.